Picture is of the pier in mae had which is about 30 seconds from our hotel. I absolutely love Ko tao. It is the most amazing place. the people are so much nicer than in anywhere else we have been, it is a lot more chilled out and how i expected a thai island to be!!

I cant belive i also love diving so much. initially when we booked it i was only doing it so gemma wouldnt have to do it alone but now i am so so so glad i gave it a go!

Day One (12th Jan)

We arrived in Koh Tao (Turtle Island) at about 10:30am and went straight to the hotel to sign in. Our first lesson was at 1pm and was in the classroom. Room is pretty basic and it is cold showers again so that will be nice after been in the cold sea all day!! NOT! Classroom lesson was very boring and about 3 hrs long. we got split into our groups that we would be in for the rest of the week. me and gem were put with an essex boy (Reece) and 3 people from Finland (Sari, Mariannah and Samuel). i think the finnish people had been promised a finnish instructor but they were all booked up! I was also hoping for more english people as the finnish lot didnt seem friendly. There were 3 instructors on offer, nathan who is the main guy here i think and seems a bit scary when i told him i was afraid of sharks he said to the whole class "is anyone afraid of anything REAL?!" then they was kenji who is originally thai but i guessed we wouldnt get him as him translating thai into english then the finnish thranslating his thai english into finnish would be too much. Luckily we got justin who noone had met yet so hope fully he will be nice. Went and met Nic andf Meg from New Year later at a bar. they had stayed in Ko Tao a lot longer than planned (which is what everyone seems to end up doing) and meg had done the dive course and loved it (but at a different hotel).

Day Two (13th January)

We met Justin this morning. he can only be describes as enthusiastic. the kind of teacher that tries to get everyone to smile. Considering no one knew anyone else and it was 7am no one was really in the mood, but bless him he persevered... the plan was pool work this afternoon, exam the next day followed by two dives then two dives on the 15th! However, all did not go according to plan. Sam is not very competent in the water, and when we were in the pool, kept surfacing and ripping his mask off (which is obv not something he can do in the sea unless he wants to pop his lungs!). so we were doing skills until about 5:30pm all of us had done ours and were just left shivering at the bottom of the pool. apparently my lips were blue by the time we got out. me and gem couldnt even face cold showers so we went straight to bed (9pm) after having some food.

Day 3 (14th January, my b'day!)

Justin came and met us this morning while we were having breakfast (they do peanut butter on toast yay!!!), he said we still had a lot to do in the pool that we didnt get chance to do yesterday so he was extending the course by a day so we would have this afternoon off and wouldnt need to be in till 11:30am the next morning. He then found out it was my bday and called me birthday girl all day, but he recommended some nice restaurants for us to go to. we spent the morning in the pool. Samuel still couldnt get all the skills so justin let us get out and sunbathe whilst he worked one on one with Sam. Then we went into the sea and did a 200m swim and tread water for 10 mins. samuel couldnt do the treading water because he gets tired easily so he did it in the pool later and he did his 20m swim with help from Justin. No resentment honestly!! we then did our final exam (where i got 90%) and then chilled out for the afternoon. Me and Gem ended up going to a gorgeous Italian called Portobello for tea, but there is also a nice tapas restaurant and steak house we want to go to. So all in all it was a great birthday!

Day 4 (15th January)

Went on our first 2 dives today (to 12m). It was so much better being in the sea and my fear seems to have completely gone. Had to do a lot of skills and not much swimming and visibility wanst great but still got to see a lot of fish and get a feel for it. A trainee instructor called Jase came with us as well and he is really cool, and everyone in the group is getting on really well so was such a cool day!

Day 5 (16th January final day!)

Did our 3rd and 4th Dives today to a max depth of 18 metres. Everyone was a lot more relaxed and confident about diving and the conditions had got better overnight so it was just so much better. everyone loved it. Gem had some problems with sea sickness and equalizing (popping your ears as you go down) on the first day but she had sorted that by day 2 so she enjoyed it a lot more as well. We definitely have the best diving instructor out of all the ones i have seen. Justin is really atient and lovely and just never lets you give up! We had a guy filming us today when we were underwater and justin "danced" with all the girls 15m down which was cool! Justin wants us to do the advanced course which is 2 extra days and is a lot more swimming and less skills and you do a deep dive to 30m but i think we are so exhausted and have both spent more money than we thought we would as the exchange rate isnt as good as i used to be, so we arent going to bother... We went to the hotel bar that night and watched the video of us diving and then went out with all the instructors. it was such a good night. Had a fantastic night and got to know all the other groups that we were with on the first day in the classroom. Me and gem had slightly too much wine and ended up being walked home by 2 of the dive instructors. Its not dangerous at all here i think they were more worried we would just take refuge under a tree or something.

The Morning After!!

Had to get up at 9am today to move hotels. We have found somewhere with hot showers as we cant take it anymore! It was so dfficult to get out of bed. Me and Gem were both feeling the effects!! Went to get some breakfast and saw Jason who took pleasure in reminding us how drunk we were, although we both had the pictures to proove it! Reece from our group has started his advanced and although we were both so hungover it seemed weird not to be going diving and almost at the same time me and gem looked at each other and said "i miss diving!" so we have signed up for the advanced which starts on Monday, which is nice as it will give us 2 days to chill out and recover...doing a night dive as part of the course and taking a underwater camera on one of the dives which will be cool!! Dont think either of us would have done it if it wasn't for Justin though.